Lifeblood

by Penny Rudolph

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  “You want to what?”

  “Camp,” Hank said.

  “In a pup tent?”

  “Not a pup tent, a pop-up tent. I haven’t used it in ages, but it’s a good one. It’s bigger than a pup tent, and easy to put up and take down.” A suggestion of a dimple twinkled at the side of his mouth.

  Irene’s eyes were moving from Hank’s face to Rachel’s, but in a rare moment of silence, she said nothing.

  “But it’s October. Almost November. Nights are getting chilly if not downright cold.”

  “We can stop at Sport Chalet in La Cañada and get you a sleeping bag. Down, like mine. If anything it’ll be too warm.”

  “Too warm. Sleeping outside. In October.”

  “Not outside. In a tent.”

  “I haven’t been camping since I was a kid. A little kid. Like seven or eight. I don’t know how to camp.”

  “I have all the stuff. Lantern. Stove. All I need is you.”

  “And some food might be a good idea.” Rachel’s laugh made her realize how tense she had been lately and how long it was since she had felt the deep cleansing rush that laughter can bring.

  “I have a cooler,” Hank said. “We can stop at a grocery store.”

  “There won’t be room in the car for me.”

  “Maybe we should take your car. It’s a hatch. Probably does hold more.”

  She clapped her hands. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  “Good girl!” Irene smiled approvingly.

  “But where?” Rachel asked. “We can’t camp in LA. And we only have three days. Really only two and a half by the time we get out of here. I don’t want to spend it all on the road.”

  Irene eyed Hank attentively. Apparently this was something she didn’t know the answer to.

  999

  Hank had a couple ideas. There was the beach at Point Magu near Ventura, but he wasn’t sure you could actually camp on the beach and wasn’t sure whether being there, but away from the beach, would be worthwhile. The other possibility was to take Angeles Crest Road north out of La Cañada into the mountains that overlooked the Los Angeles basin. Rachel had been working six days a week since arriving in Southern California and had never been to either place.

  They still hadn’t decided where to go when Hank drove Rachel’s Honda Civic into the parking lot at Ralph’s supermarket in La Crescenta. He filled their shopping cart with steaks, bread, cheese, and cold cuts.

  “We couldn’t eat that much in a week,” Rachel said as he added bacon, eggs, and coffee.

  “If you haven’t camped lately, you obviously have forgotten how hungry fresh air makes you. And how good brewing coffee and sizzling bacon smells outdoors in the morning. Must be the extra oxygen or something.”

  “You have a coffee pot? Pans?”

  “I told you, I’ve got the works.”

  At Sports Chalet, they decided where to spend the weekend.

  Examining half a dozen sleeping bags, Rachel gazed longingly at a maroon bag on sale for ninety dollars.

  “That’s a helluva buy!” Hank turned the tag and read: “…to fifteen degrees. See? I said you wouldn’t be cold. You won’t be cold anyway, my dear,” he leered.

  Rachel laughed and clapped her hands like a child. “Let’s go to the mountains then.”

  “If I remember right, the views from the road are spectacular,” Hank said as he tossed the sleeping bag into the back seat. “We could run into a little snow this time of year. Are your tires in good shape?”

  “New this spring,” she said. “I don’t do bald tires.”

  “Then we’ll be fine.”

  Every inch of the Honda’s back seat and hatch space was loaded. “Okay. We’re off to see the wizard,” he said as they got in the car.

  The metropolis stretched to the horizon behind them until the road curved again and there was nothing but cliffs and scrub forest and the road snaking upward.

  “I had no idea we could “get out of Dodge” so fast,” Rachel said. “It’s like being beamed up to a different planet.”

  “I used to camp up here about a hundred years ago when I was a kid,” Hank said. “To tell the truth, I haven’t been back since. This road is a hell of a lot better than it used to be.”

  They passed a sign that read Ranger, but when they drove into the parking area, the building looked empty. “Maybe there are some maps.” Hank got out of the car and returned with a small brochure. “It doesn’t say much, but it’s better than nothing. The way they’ve cut funding and outsourced everything for the National Forests is criminal.”

  Rachel rolled down her window as they got back on the road, enjoying the wind in her face, ruffling her hair.

  “I used to have a dog who did that,” Hank laughed, and she punched his arm.

  He hit the brakes. “That may be where my mom and I used to camp.”

  “Your mother taught you to camp?”

  “Yep. I told you my dad went out to get some root beer and ice cream one Saturday night when I was six and never came back.”

  He turned onto a narrow lane, more trail than road, that cut through the scrub and pines. The Honda bounced hard and Hank slowed it to a crawl.

  A gray cloud rose behind them. Rachel rolled her window up. “It’s sure dry up here.”

  They reached what seemed like a natural turn-out for parking. “Yeah. This is it,” Hank said.

  A small weathered sign, that had once been blue but now had only a few traces of color left, read Sugar Loaf.

  “The name may not be original,” Hank said, “but I used to think this was the neatest place on earth. Let’s walk up the trail a bit and see how it looks.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  They wandered through a broad grassy area, then followed the path around a rock and into a canyon. Yellow-brown rock rose on both sides. A few determined shrubs clung here and there to the walls. The afternoon sky was deep blue. A few very white clouds peeked over the cliffs.

  A little farther, the bottom fell away and they found themselves on a ledge. “Jesus,” Rachel said peering down. They were suspended halfway between the top of the rocky canyon wall and the ground below. A few scrubby pines straggled up from the bottom.

  Hank swung around a curve in the ledge. “I hope you don’t have acrophobia.”

  “I don’t think so. But I’ve never tried hanging right off the side of a cliff before.”

  “If I remember right, the perfect place to camp is just a little farther.”

  The ledge curled around a rock corner and a huge, spreading California oak appeared in a hollow below.

  “Wow,” Rachel said.

  Hank swept aside a brittle shrub and she saw the trail. It was overgrown, and barely traversable, but it wound down to the hollow.

  The oak tree’s gnarled roots rode the top of the hard soil but there was a level place, and just beyond it, a small pit dug into the earth. Inside the pit were the whitish ashes of past fires. Two grayish birds strode along the ground pecking for seeds. A scrub jay landed and squawked at them.

  Rachel sniffed the air. “This must be how the world smelled when it was young.”

  “Depends on what the meaning of fresh is.” A grin cut across Hank’s face.

  Laughter percolated up inside Rachel. The muscles it stirred seemed surprised and she realized, for the second time that day, that she hadn’t been laughing much recently.

  Hank pointed to the flat spot. “So we camp here?”

  “Are you sure? The car’s jam-packed and at least a mile away. To say nothing of that ledge a million feet above the canyon.”

  “So we make several trips. We’ve got backpacks.” He pointed at her cargo pants. “And you could probably carry half the entire load in those pockets.”

  Rachel was gazing at the huge tree. A breeze rattled its leaves. Its spreading limbs seemed to offer a sort of primal sense of security. “It’s like we’re the first white people to see this place.”

  �
�And we’re only fifty or so miles from LA.”

  “You sure it’s okay to camp here?”

  Hank reached out and ruffled her hair. “Who’s gonna know?”

  It was nearly four by the time they stowed the last items in their backpacks. Rachel turned to Hank. “There’s one more thing I want to take.” She reached under the driver’s seat and brought out the old thirty-eight.

  “Why bother?” Hank said. “There’s nothing more dangerous here than a deer or raccoon. I doubt many people even know about this place.”

  “No coyotes? Mountain lions? Snakes?”

  “Well, I guess there could be. But I wouldn’t make one of them mad by shooting at it.”

  “I’d rather have the gun with us.”

  Hank shrugged. “Is it legal?”

  “Probably not. I’m probably not supposed to have it under the car seat.”

  Hank looked dubious.

  “I usually never take it out of the garage. I didn’t think about the gun laws when I put it in the car. We had guns at the farm. Even my mom was a good shot.”

  “Okay.” Hank started toward the trail. “If you promise not to shoot my toes off in the middle of the night.”

  She checked the safety and slipped the gun into a side pocket of her cargo pants. It felt heavy. “Wait up.”

  They made their way across the ledge yet again. The shadows were becoming long and sharp when they arrived at the oak.

  Rachel looked at her watch. “I thought it was later.”

  “We’re in a canyon. It gets dark quicker.” Hank was laying out pieces of blue and gray fabric, and plastic stakes.

  Rachel surveyed the raw beauty of the area. When she turned back, Hank was popping up the tent. She pulled up the flap, unzipped the netting and peered inside. “Plenty big enough for two. I didn’t know you did stuff like this. Were you a survivalist or something?”

  Hank snickered. “Tents are for sissies. Survivalists don’t use tents.” He had begun scouring the area for bits of kindling. “Those two filets you were drooling over at the store will fit very nicely on the grill.”

  On a flat rock several feet from the tree, Rachel set up the Coleman stove. The sky was still blue, but dimming.

  She cut up lettuce, tomatoes, and green onions into two paper bowls. “When should I put on the steaks?”

  Hank didn’t answer.

  She was turning to look for him when someone grabbed her from behind.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Rachel spun around, eyes wild.

  “Jesus, Rachel! Take it easy.”

  “Omigod! What were you doing grabbing me like that?”

  “Being incredibly stupid. Thanks for holding off on the knee.” He gazed at her a moment, then brought his mouth down on hers. “That’s more what I had in mind.”

  “I do think I like that better.” She traced his cheek with her finger. His eyes looked very dark and deep. She brushed a strand of hair from his forehead, then stood on tiptoe to kiss him again.

  “Now, what were you calling me about?”

  “I was asking if you had unrolled the sleeping bags,” she said, taking his hand and drawing him toward the tent.

  999

  “Better than I’ve ever imagined,” Rachel said, firelight fluttering across her face. It wasn’t late, but the air was cooling. A thumbnail of moon floated in the narrow gap between the cliffs like a white sail on a boat on deep blue water.

  “Really?” Hank smirked. He had built a small fire while Rachel had grilled the steaks.

  She chuckled. “Well that, too, but I was talking about the steaks.”

  “It’s amazing how much everything improves with fresh air.” Hank pulled a sleeping bag from the tent and wrapped it around her, then lay down with his head in her lap.

  “There’s something I need to tell you. I thought we’d be driving longer, and I could tell you in the car, but there wasn’t time, so I guess I have to do it now.”

  He sat up. His face a map of worry, he stared into her face. “Okay.”

  At first the words wouldn’t come out. Then they spilled out in a rush: “I’ve been arrested. For something I didn’t do. I swear it.”

  “Oh.” Hank lay down again, balancing his head on her thigh.

  “It was awful. Worse than horrible. I could lose the garage, Hank. I even bought a bottle of vodka. Vodka, of all things. What was I thinking? Thank God I didn’t drink it. I had to put the garage up to get bail, but I got a loan from a bank vice president who owed a favor to a gangster, who’s a friend of my dad’s.”

  Hank sat up again, a worried look darkening his features. “What did you do?”

  “I got a loan from a bank president who owed—”

  “I got that part,” Hank cut in. “What did you do to get arrested? Or what did they say you did?”

  “The people at Jefferson Medical Center said I stole a bottle of prescription medication. Something called OxyContin.”

  He pulled her close and wrapped the sleeping bag around both of them. “How did it happen?”

  He shuddered a little as she spun out the story. “You watched an operation? A real one? While they cut someone open?”

  “It wasn’t as gory as you think. Hardly any blood.”

  “Still, why would you want to do that?” he asked.

  “I was invited. I thought it might be neat to do something most people haven’t done.”

  “They haven’t done it for a very good reason.”

  “And I wanted the use of the scrubs, so I could get into that ward on the fourth floor.”

  “You seem a little obsessed with that ward.” He caught her look and added, “I’m not criticizing or anything. I’m just pointing it out.”

  “I keep thinking it has something to do with those kids—the ones I found in that van. Two weird things at Jefferson: that ward and those kids. Doesn’t seem a huge stretch to imagine they may be related.”

  She didn’t tell him about the medical record she stole, or that someone had broken into her apartment and taken those papers. She had told him enough for one day. The rest could wait.

  As the sky darkened more, a few stars appeared, trailing the moon.

  999

  Rachel woke to something poking her from outside the tent. Hank was still asleep, snoring lightly. She frowned. Whatever it was poked again. Rather than dress, she wrapped herself in her sleeping bag and unzipped the tent’s netting. Pushing through the flap, she looked up and gasped.

  Two eyes looked back at her.

  A mule deer lowered its head and, still peering at her, backed up a step.

  The sky was just beginning a gray glow along the canyon edges. Shrubs and rocks were black silhouettes.

  She put her head back through the tent flap and whispered, “Hank! A deer.”

  He rolled over.

  She turned back to the deer, which had now come a step closer. She went to the backpack they had left leaning against a rock, unzipped it and took out an apple. It was a big Gala apple.

  The deer watched, flicking first one ear, then the other, as she carved the apple into eight pieces and held out a slice on the flat palm of her hand, the way she had fed her mother’s horses as a child.

  The deer shifted its weight from one foot to another, then raised its head, picking up the scent of fresh-cut apple. It moved forward, stopped, moved forward again. When it was close enough, it stretched its neck and gently took the apple slice.

  They continued in that tableau until the deer had swallowed the last bit of apple. Then it turned, and with only one backward glance, disappeared behind a rock.

  “I should have brought a camera.” Hank was at the door of the tent. “You look like a little kid.”

  She sighed. “I’ve been in the city too long.”

  “So where’s breakfast?”

  She picked up an apple and threw it at him.

  Hank wrestled her to the ground until they were both laughing. He kissed her on the nose.

  “Who
are you and what have you done with Hank?” she giggled. “Hank is Mr. Grumpy in the morning. At least until he gets his coffee.”

  Hank rolled to his feet. “Three eggs over easy.” He ducked and ran back to the tent.

  999

  After breakfast, they hiked the narrowing canyon to a barely discernable trail that led upward, through pines that were soon joined, then passed, by tall firs.

  Their reward was a view that gave new meaning to the word vast.

  “This has to be the very top of the world,” Rachel said, her voice hushed. “We must be able to see all the way to Kansas.”

  “On a really clear day, Mexico, maybe, but not Kansas. We’re looking south.”

  “You are so literal.” Rachel tickled his ribs until he staggered and fell, pulling her down to him. “Did you know about this place or did we find it by accident?”

  “I sorta knew. I hoped I remembered it right. Last time I was here I was about ten.” He tried to sit up.

  She pushed him back down.

  “Rachel….”

  She rolled on top of him and kissed him, hard, then rolled off, put her hands behind her head and gazed at the cloudless, silvery blue sky. A solitary bird was spiraling upward. She turned on her side and traced her fingers down Hank’s arm. “You still want to set a date?”

  But they were soon too busy to talk.

  999

  It was mid afternoon when they made their way back down to the campsite. Rachel reached it a few yards ahead of Hank.

  At first, everything looked fine.

  Chapter Forty

  The shot came from above. It passed Rachel’s ear, and chips rocketed away from where it plunged itself into a rock. A fragment grazed her cheek.

  Her mind struggled to catch up with events. “What the hell?” The words were more a genuine question than a scream.

  “Rachel! For God’s sake, get down!” In two long leaps Hank covered the space between them.

  She had already dropped into a crouch.

  “Get behind a rock!” he ordered in a low voice.

  She began to crawl, then stopped. “But where? I don’t know where the shot came from. Maybe it’s just a lousy hunter.” Her mind spun to a halt as she heard another shot and more rock chips sprayed into the air.

  “He’s up over there.” Rachel jabbed a finger toward the path that led to the car, and scrambled away from the rocks into the open.